Criminal
by uchiha.s
Summary: Oneshot, Office-setting AU. Ginny could not keep a plant alive if her life depended on it. Neville was outraged but also intrigued. He would never have guessed that the pretty sports columnist had had such a dark past. Neville/Ginny; other assorted pairings.
**Criminal**

 **Summary:** Oneshot, Office-setting AU. Ginny could not keep a plant alive if her life depended on it. Neville was outraged but also intrigued. He would never have guessed that the pretty sports columnist had had such a dark past. Neville/Ginny; other assorted pairings.

 **Author's note:** This story contains the following pairings, both shown and implied: Ginny/Neville, Ginny/Dean, one-sided Ginny/Harry, one-sided Ginny/TMR ( _I know_ ), Hermione/Harry, Ron/Luna, one-sided Neville/Parvati, Lavender/Ron, probably others that I can't recall.

This was intended as a short, silly thing centered on the whole plant thing but then took on a life of its own. It gets slightly dark in some spots so tread carefully.

This is largely driven by the headcanon that the movies created for me: wherein Neville starts off as the bumbling, chubby kid who suddenly grows up into looking like Matthew Lewis, and is an uber-hot professor who still retains his loyalty and chivalry, but never really gets past feeling like he's the awkward bumbling chubby kid.

I also have this headcanon that he and Ginny probably shared a lot of laughs and their bond was formed mainly via their sense of humor (in addition to their devotion to doing the right thing, etc.).

Enjoy!

 **Disclaimer:** The HP universe does not belong to me. Additionally the "get the duck over here" joke does not belong to me—though I contend that that joke has been made by everyone in the world who has ever used an iPhone, so it doesn't actually _belong_ to anyone anyway.

* * *

He'd seen the poor dead plants in the rubbish bins _how_ many times now? Neville couldn't even keep track anymore. _Why buy them_ , he wanted to scream at her. If she routinely threw out a plant every few weeks, shouldn't she have caught on by now that maybe she should _just stop_? Why not get a nice, fake plant?

She threw them out in the bins in the common area, next to the sink. Over the past year he had fallen into the habit of glancing into the bin as he made his afternoon tea, wondering what dried-up supermarket-type plant she had destroyed each week.

At first Neville hadn't known who it was. Had he been a more aggressive man, he might've put up posters, demanding to know who was so homicidal to their poor office plants. As it were, he was generally non-confrontational, and thus he began—well, there was no other word for it—spying.

He tried lingering by the water coolers, but with a mug of tea in his hand and no other good reason for being there, he always felt awkward and too obvious. No one would throw out a plant with the odd bloke from the Gardening and Landscape department hanging about, he reasoned. He was so tall, too, that he stood out. And perhaps it was awkwardness leftover from his teen years, which he had mostly outgrown, but Neville always keenly sensed that he stood out in a weird way no matter where he was or what he was doing.

So he'd started eating his lunch in the common area instead of cooped up inside his own office, like he had done for the previous five years. It was a stakeout of sorts. Harry, the nice bloke from the crime section, often ate with him. Neville sensed at first that this habit was borne of guilt and empathy, rather than genuine friendship, but soon enough he and Harry had developed a decent rapport that could almost be mistaken for friendship.

It was through this faux-bromanship, incidentally, that he was able to identify the culprit of the dead plants. Had Harry not uncomfortably sat with him that first day clearly feeling some sense of obligation, the mystery might have remained permanently unsolved.

Harry was in the middle of stuffing food into his face as he and Neville heatedly discussed the most recent Aurors game, when two things happened at once: there came a feminine-sounding scoff from behind Neville, and Harry choked epically on his ham sandwich and had to be hit smartly on the back by Dean, the art and culture columnist and noted hearthrob of the Prophet, who happened to be passing by them as he was walking towards the microwave.

Neville glanced over his shoulder to see a stunning redhead wave with a cheeky grin at Dean, and then—so heartlessly!—toss a dead Pothos in the rubbish.

He actually audibly gasped as though he had been struck.

"Uh oh, Gin, watch out—you've got our resident tree-hugger in the room," Dean warned the girl as he retrieved his curry from the microwave. The girl arched her brows at Neville as though daring him. _Bring it on,_ her eyes said. Neville, always a people-watcher, absently noted that these two clearly were shagging—or at the very least had done so at some point—but his focus was clouded by his outrage on behalf of the poor Pothos.

"You couldn't even keep a Pothos alive?" Neville despaired. The girl actually blushed.

"The light in my office is tricky," she shot back defiantly, tossing her hair as though challenging him. Neville snorted.

"They don't need light," he quipped before turning back to his spaghetti. Harry was looking at him with some mixture of amazement, horror, amusement, and—to Neville's own wonder—envy. _Ah, so Harry fancies her but can't get past Dean,_ he discerned.

When the common area was cleared out and the Plant Killer had returned to her office, Harry finally spoke.

"That's Ginny Weasley," he said, as though dropping some great piece of knowledge on Neville.

"Who? Ah, don't tell me—is she related to Rob Weasley? The guy who writes the humor and satire column?"

"Ron. My friend. And yeah, she's his younger sister."

"She's a murderer," Neville said cheekily at Harry.

"Murder _ess_ , actually," came that feminine, playful voice again. Neville glanced over his shoulder once more—Ginny Weasley had reappeared, ostensibly for more coffee, judging by her empty mug, which had the Holyhead Harpies emblem on it.

Harry's eyes followed her every movement, as she seemed to float over to the percolator. This was not just about her looks, though. Neville was filled with his usual glee that he got whenever he spotted some new office romance and/or drama. He couldn't wait to tell Luna and Hermione, particularly since Hermione worked closely with Harry.

The second Ginny Weasley left, Neville rounded on Harry.

"Come on, Harry," he reasoned, watching Harry look at him with surprise. "You cannot possibly fancy a _plant-killer._ "

"I _don't fancy_ her," Harry said shortly, but he spent the rest of their lunch scowling in the general direction of Ginny's office. As they were wrapping up their lunch, Hermione appeared.

"You have time to leisurely eat a social lunch but not enough to finish your article on time?" she asked Harry, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. Most people were cowed by Hermione, but Harry shot her a smirk.

"Seems so," he said with a shrug. Hermione's eyes flashed.

"Well, I'll keep that in mind when we submit peer commentary for the performance reviews," she said primly, and continued on to the refrigerator.

"I'm sure it'll really draw attention, instead of all of the evidence of the additional revenue _my_ articles bring in," Harry called after her. Neville watched Hermione stiffen in front of the refrigerator momentarily. She calmly retrieved her Tupperware, and turned back to them both with an eerie smile on her face.

"I'm uncannily good at directing reader focus, as it turns out," she parried, and breezed by them.

"You've done it now, Harry," Neville warned with a grin. Harry's mouth twisted to mask a smirk.

"Happens every time," he said simply, and got up and tossed out his rubbish.

* * *

"So. The stupid office outing's at the Three Broomsticks. D'you know what you're wearing?"

Parvati, the newspaper's fashion columnist, was lounging on Ginny's desk whilst Ginny finished up an article.

"Probably the skinny jeans and the boots and my red drapey top," she replied absently, narrowing her eyes at an odd sentence.

"I hope there's drama. I'm going to wear my leather dress. I feel like it's fortuitous for creating drama," she said thoughtfully. "And, okay, this is going to sound _absolutely_ ridiculous, but just hear me out."

Luckily Parvati rarely required a response so Ginny was free to continue editing her article, which was due two hours ago, whilst she continued on. "I'm sort of…okay, I'm _really_ planning on getting a bit tipsy and chatting up the Gardening bloke. And by chatting him up, I mean going home with and shagging the pants off him."

Ginny paused, her mind snagging on Parvati's words.

"Who?"

" _You know._ The one Lav said was the only eight in the office—aside from Dean, naturally."

"Hm. Don't think I know him," she said with a shrug, and went back to her article. She heard Parvati sigh.

"Right. You don't need to go shopping because you've already got the perfect one. And that bloke from the crime section—Harry, is it—totally fancies you too, so you've got backup if this so-called 'break' with Dean actually lasts. And Harry's at least a six, if not a seven."

"Dean is a ten, _first of all,"_ Ginny said archly, before decisively deleting a paragraph, "and I'd say Harry's an eight," she added. "Points subtracted for the glasses and weird obsession with Draco Malfoy."

"Okay, but forget him—this bloke is at _least_ a nine, if not a nine point five."

"No decimals. Only integers. You know the rules," Ginny chided. "So what is it—nine or ten?"

"Ugh! I knew you'd say that," Parvati whined. "Look, if I hadn't sort of known him as a kid, I'd say ten, _definitely_. But I remember what he was like back then—he was the fat weird kid who _always_ got picked last for teams—and it slightly detracts from the overall package. But only slightly!"

"I'm sure he'd love to hear about that," Ginny snorted. "Look, go home and get pretty, okay? I've got to finish this, then I swear I'll be there." Ginny batted her eyelashes at Parvati, who rolled her eyes.

"Swot," she teased. "Alright, alright. Text me when you're on your way."

"Will do," Ginny said, turning back to her article.

Parvati left, and Ginny glanced at the clock. It was seven already—everyone was due to meet at the Three Broomsticks at eight. She skimmed her article, feeling a sudden wave of defensiveness. Did Parvati and Lavender really think Dean was only an eight?

Scowling, she brought up the newspaper's website and clicked through until she found the page with all of the teams' pictures and bios. She did a quick search and then, at long last, located this supposed competitor of Dean's.

"Oh, right!" she murmured aloud. It was the bloke who'd teased her for killing her plants today—now it made sense. She studied the picture. It was a nice enough photograph, and yes, this Neville Longbottom _was_ quite attractive. It helped that he was especially tall, and quite fit, which she'd noticed this afternoon even though he'd been sitting down… "Good luck, Parvati," she muttered. He was likely a dark horse who secretly had loads of girls after him outside the office.

She spent another thirty minutes on the article and finally sent it off, deciding to write it off as a bad job for now. She groaned when she realized she'd not have enough time to go home and change—well, no matter. With enough drinks in her, she'd probably end up without clothes in Dean's bed anyway, even though they were supposed to be on a break, and then the effort of changing her outfit would be a waste.

There was something depressing in that notion. She locked up her office, and felt her heart twinge. _You're better than this, Ginny Weasley,_ she told her reflection in the glass of her door fiercely. _You will_ not _sleep with Dean tonight, under_ any _circumstances, because you are an independent, disciplined-_

"Another straggler?"

She let out a scream and dropped her purse. Speak of the devil—none other than Neville Longbottom was at the other end of the hall. "Sorry!" He held his hands up in surrender. Ginny let out a sigh.

"No, _I'm_ sorry. I totally thought I was the last one out."

"Eh, Hermione's still in her office, but we'll see if she bothers coming out to the gathering," he said, approaching her now. Ginny took the opportunity to subtly check him out. _Definitely works out,_ she decided, noting how his chinos hung so neatly on his quads as he walked, and how his button-up pulled at his shoulders yet gaped at his flat abs in just the right ways. _Just the right amount of stubble, too. Well done, Parvati._

He had no idea he was so bloody hot, too—that much was all too obvious. He reminded her of a puppy, eagerly approaching her with only happy, pure intentions. He was utterly unlike Dean, who was languid and overconfident about his hotness, yet insecure and needy as well.

Ginny almost wanted to cringe.

Parvati—or any woman, for that matter—would eat poor Neville Longbottom alive.

"Does Hermione _ever_ leave the office?" Ginny asked. Neville knelt in front of her and retrieved her purse for her. It gave her the opportunity to thoroughly assess his hair, which she decided was also up to snuff. It was short, neatly styled without looking like he'd done anything to it, and clean.

"Gee—switch "office" for "library" and you'd get about ninety-nine percent of what people said to me all through my school years," Neville reminisced. Ginny snorted.

"I didn't realize you went to school together," she said as they fell into step together.

"Yup. Me, Hermione, Luna, Parvati, and Lavender."

"Luna as in the advice columnist?"

"The very same," Neville said gravely. "Of course, there can only be one."

"The world is not enough… _for two Lunas,_ " Ginny added dramatically, picking up on his joke. Neville sniggered. "No kidding, though—what a small world!"

They left the building and were now in the open evening air of Hogsmeade—as it was springtime, it naturally was raining. Ginny thought uncomfortably of what Parvati had said: _he was the fat weird kid who_ always _got picked last for teams._ "Were you, um, all friends?" she asked brightly as they turned to face each other.

Neville was not so quick to smile now; he forced it.

"Oh, yeah—best of friends," he said, and there was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "So," he changed tone abruptly, "are you going to the Circle Jerk—I mean, office gathering?"

Ginny found herself laughing again irresistibly. She mopped her face with her hands, thinking of it and finding it suddenly unbearable.

"Ugh. Alcohol. People I see all the time anyway. Drama." She let her hands drop. Neville was eying her with interest. "You're trying to read me and get the scoop," she said flatly. "I would not have figured you for being the office gossip."

"I am probably a bigger gossip than even Lavender," he confided. "Rather, I am excellent at people-watching, and the office is a prime place to hone my abilities. Also, I decided to stop paying for cable, so I need entertainment."

She regarded him. Okay, so he was _ridiculously_ cute. Again, it was totally in a puppyish sort of way.

"Alright," she said lightly. "Well, I happen to know for a fact that a girl is planning on flirting with you tonight, and I won't say who. If you _really_ are such an adept people-watcher, you should already know who it is."

They were walking together again, but Ginny was not entirely sure it was in the right direction. Neville's eyes were dancing as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"A _girl_ , you say? Oh, this is a challenge," he mused. "Well, it's not you, as you're caught between Dean and Harry," he started, ticking off his fingers. Ginny was aghast that he clearly knew so much about her in spite of them not having had a conversation before today. "Not Hermione, as she'll not be there, and as much as we adore each other….ick," he reasoned matter-of-factly, ticking off another finger. "Not Luna, for…reasons we do not need to go into," he continued. Ginny gasped.

"Oho—do not tell me you shagged Luna," she hissed with glee. Neville snorted.

"I did not, but we have an…arrangement," he began tentatively. "We've agreed that if we're both still single at age forty-five, we'll adopt three children from impoverished countries of Luna's choosing."

"Ah, I see—sex would really get in the way of the adoption plan," Ginny said sagely, nodding.

"Precisely. So Luna's out. Can't be Lavender, because she's busy chasing after your brother."

"WHAT!?" Ginny stopped them in the middle of the sidewalk, and a couple had to irritably part to get around them. Neville was grinning.

"Oh, sorry—you didn't know?" he asked innocently, and shoved his hands in his pockets and began pretending to slink off.

"NO. I did NOT know," Ginny said thunderously, chasing after him. "She cannot go after Ron! That is just like…"

"…Totally revolting?" Neville supplied helpfully.

"Exactly. Totally revolting," Ginny said with a groan. "Ugh. Okay, moving on. You've still got a few girls to get through."

"Right, I need to focus." Neville sighed. "I feel like I'm forgetting a few…Alright, it's not Susan Bones, because I asked her out a year ago and she _very kindly_ rejected me."

"Susan would be lucky to date a troll with that haircut and that dull personality," Ginny blurted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. "Okay, sorry—that was super mean." For some reason she felt ashamed, even though she often made comments like that. "I just think she was silly to turn you down," she explained.

"She didn't fancy me—so no harm done. Hermione and I dare each other to ask a new person out every year and she was my pick last year."

"Oh? So who's this year's pick?"

"Haven't found her yet," Neville said lightly. "But this year I'm daring her to ask Harry out..."

Neville glanced at her, with his brows arched expectantly. She glowered at him.

"No. You will not get anything from me that way, mister."

"Was worth a try," he said with a shrug. "Alright, so who else is there?"

"I can't _give_ you names; that's against the rules! By the way, we're not even walking in the right direction."

They paused on a corner.

"Yeah, I noticed, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings," Neville said graciously. Ginny smirked at him.

"Oh, how kind," she said sweetly. "You know, I bet I would completely kick your arse in air hockey."

"You _really_ don't want to go to this gathering, do you?" he observed. Ginny deflated.

"I really don't," she admitted. "Look, you can't share this around, okay?—but Dean and I are trying to be on a break right now and I know if I drink anywhere near him, I will _conveniently_ forget that. Or, more likely, I will try to make him forget that. And it will be completely pathetic and embarrassing and I will totally regret it in the morning. And I already feel like our relationship has enough of an audience, you know?"

"Yep. The whole office knows," Neville agreed mildly. "You really can't be around him without…behaving like that?"

"I really can't. God knows why."

"Well, it looks like the only solution is to go have a drink as far from Dean Thomas as possible, and play lots of air hockey," Neville said seriously. Ginny bit her lip.

"But a girl will hit on you. You can't miss that," she pointed out. Neville scoffed.

"Come on. Beer and air hockey."

Okay, so yes—she had _unconsciously_ been walking in the direction of her favorite arcade anyway. Filled with a weird sense of glee, they stopped in the pub across the road and each downed a pint of beer before going to the arcade, which was filled with teenagers. Ginny felt a rare sense of secretive euphoria, as though she were a teenager and truanting. _We shouldn't be doing this,_ she thought giddily as they faced each other across the up-lit air hockey table. Loud techno remixes of Celestina Warbeck songs blared around them and LED disco balls cast them both in glittering, multi-colored light.

"Are you ready for this?" Neville asked her solemnly, as though asking a life-or-death question. "Because I am probably just as good at air-hockey as I am at every other sport."

"I was born ready," Ginny said fiercely.

The match began. Neville was awful—just atrocious, really. He was so bad that any other person would have had to put in significant effort to be that bad. It should have dampened her enjoyment of the game but instead it only enhanced it, particularly since he was genuinely trying to play. Several times the puck went flying off the table, and once it actually hit a young girl in the back of the head.

"OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY!" Neville exploded, running to her and awkwardly hovering near her, clearly torn between reflexively hugging her, and running away. Ginny was howling with laughter, bent over the table and shaking. "By the way, my friend here is definitely _not_ laughing _at_ you; she is just seriously disturbed. It's very sad. Please don't stare. It's probably terminal," she overheard him saying, and she found herself laughing harder.

Her mobile was probably blowing up with texts—mainly ones from Parvati, and perhaps Ginny should have felt guilty about stealing Parvati's target. _He was the fat weird kid who_ always _got picked last for teams._

Why couldn't she let go of that comment? It had been so offhand and that made it all the worse.

She straightened up, her eyes still streaming from laughing so hard, to see Neville making slashing noises at his neck and grimacing. The arcade manager was walking towards them.

"RUN!" Ginny cried out, and grabbed her purse and they broke into a run and fled the arcade.

"I just brained a thirteen year old with a hockey puck," Neville said when they were outside again. "She'll probably need surgery. At the very least she'll need therapy for trauma via air hockey puck. I need a drink."

"She'll never be able to go into an arcade again."

"Every time she sees disco balls or hears remixed Celestina Warbeck, she'll be sent back to that moment."

"She'll write a memoir: _Score: How a Hockey Puck Changed My Life._ "

Still laughing breathlessly, they returned to the pub across the street, and this time, they picked a small, high table in the corner. Ginny could feel her purse buzzing against her side and abruptly shoved her purse under the table. Neville went to get them a round, and Ginny watched him for a moment. He stood awkwardly at the bar, politely waiting for the barman's attention rather than budging past others like he should have. _He sucks at buying drinks,_ she reflected with some tenderness. It was like he'd never fully shed the awkwardness of his childhood—like he still saw himself as the fat weird kid who always got picked last for teams.

She risked looking at her mobile—Neville was going to be a while, at this rate—and worried her lip at the sight of her screen.

 **Parvati** : _where r u?! Other ten not here yet. Am sweating lke pig in this ducking dress._

 **Parvati:** _Omg. Stupid autocorrect. Not ducking. DUCKING._

 **Parvati:** _OMG._

 **Parvati:** _OK duck it._

 **Parvati** : _Where r u?!_

 **Parvati:** _Get the duck over here!_

"We can try, but I dunno where we'll get a duck at this time of night," came a voice behind her, and Ginny let out a shriek of surprise and nearly dropped her mobile on the table. Neville was grinning, albeit rather uncomfortably, and now Ginny noticed he had his hands—they were pleasingly large and angular hands, she noted, with clean, short nails—stretched precariously over three pints. "So…the barman gave us a free pint because apparently I'm with a stunning redhead," he explained awkwardly, setting the three pints on the table.

Ginny groaned and warily glanced in the direction of the bar. The barman winked at her.

"Um, ew. He's like seventy. Why didn't you just say you were my boyfriend?" she asked in exasperation, and took her pint. Neville rolled his eyes.

"I did, and he _laughed._ In fact, they all did—they're still laughing," he said boredly. "Cheers."

"Cheers. And thanks," she added, before taking a long swig of beer.

"So," Neville began, setting down his pint. "Got a bone to pick with you, Weasley."

She couldn't help the thought: _have we secretly been best friends for years?_ Because it really, really felt like it.

At the same time, she felt a clench of worry. How much of Parvati's absurd stream of texts had he seen just now? It didn't really matter if he'd seen them, but she still felt strange about it. She suddenly did not want to be associated with Parvati.

"Yes?"

"The plants!" He beat his fist on the table. "You kill _all_ of them."

She was so absurdly relieved that this wasn't about Parvati that she felt giddiness return to her, even as something else niggled her mind.

There also hadn't been one text from Dean.

Not even _one._

"They're suicidal," she said with a blasé wave of her hand. Neville gave her a serious look, tilted his head to the side, and clasped his hands together as he leaned in.

"Have you tried talking to them?"

It was a really dumb joke but she still was laughing. Ginny took another long swig of her beer to hide just how hard she was laughing. Neville's eyes were twinkling.

"I am the least domestic woman in the world," she began. She idly noticed that almost half her pint was already gone. "And the only décor my office has are my team jersey and university pennant, so I always try to add a more personal touch. Paintings and all that crap are not my jam, so…plants it is."

"I hate to break it to you, but for the love of all that is green, plants are _not_ your jam either," he said, shaking his head. "Ikea, by the way, has _fantastic_ fake plants."

"I don't do Ikea. Not since my first flat," Ginny said dismissively. Neville snorted.

"So, I tried making my own furniture last year, because…well, dunno, I guess I just wanted to punish myself in a new and creative way. So I got the wood, I found a place to chop it and all, and I read all these damn books—or rather, Hermione read them for me and then told me the important bits—and…"

"…And your furniture is all Ikea now, isn't it?" she guessed shrewdly. Neville gave a cheesy grin and a thumbs-up. "What happened to…the remains?" she asked darkly. She took another swig of her beer. She was beating Neville in the race to finish their drinks, but luckily she could hold her alcohol, so long as Dean wasn't anywhere nearby.

"Gave 'em to my Gran," he said, matching her dark tone, "for _firewood._ "

"No!"

"I cannot lie," Neville said, shaking his head sorrowfully. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…"

They split the third, free pint between them, and Ginny began to feel not quite drunk, but pleasantly relaxed. The fact that Dean had not texted her, wondering where she was, seemed a little less shitty now with all this beer in her.

This time she went to the bar for the drinks, and the barman gave her a free pint—she still had to buy Neville's, apparently—and they finished those pints quickly too.

Neville clearly was a little less skilled at holding _any_ alcohol—his face was already slightly flushed, and his smile a little wider.

Neville felt pleasantly tipsy. He'd not gotten this tipsy in a while, not since Christmastime, when he, Luna, and Hermione had their yearly Christmas movie marathon. He'd made the eggnog a little stronger than usual so that when he tried to sneak in _Love Actually_ , Hermione would be less likely to shoot it down for its anti-feminist portrayals of women.

As it went, there were basically no Christmas movies that didn't have some measure of misogyny, racism, or general bigotry in them in some just-subtle-enough-to-get-past sort of way. Neville, thanks to Hermione's thorough conditioning throughout their adolescence as well as his own inherent values, was a staunch feminist, but _Love Actually_ was a particular guilty pleasure of his. In the end, she'd allowed it, "because it's Christmas," she had slurred, but really she had meant, _because eggnog._ She'd passed out halfway through the movie and had scolded him later for making the eggnog too strong.

 _Anyway._ He was tipsy, and in just the right way, but he wondered: how long could this possibly last? Ginny's mobile lay off to the side on the table, facedown, like the compact, sleek, black and silver buzzing elephant in the room. She was obviously thinking a lot of the texts she was—or was not—receiving, because she'd not looked at it once except for when he'd gone up to get the drinks. She was putting a lot of effort into not caring about it, and Neville was not fooled.

She'd get drunk, he reasoned, and at some point, one way or another, Dean would show up. He'd cart her off, thanking Neville for 'looking out' for her, and Neville would be left feeling like an arse for hanging out with someone else's girlfriend. Hermione would scold him for being so manipulated by Ginny, because Neville was _always_ being manipulated by women, and Hermione was _always_ scolding him for it, and Luna would dreamily ask if they were still on for third-world adopted babies in fifteen years. And Ginny would probably pretend the evening had never happened on Monday, and give him the cold shoulder, and…

"You're not listening," Ginny said suddenly. Neville sighed.

"You caught me. Sorry, I know nothing about sports and am incapable of following any sports-related talk." He shrugged.

"You clearly work out, though," she remarked slyly. Neville felt his face grow warm in spite of himself.

"That…seems irrelevant," he replied slowly.

"I suppose it is, but you can't help but assume that any guy who works out probably cares a lot about sports." She paused a beat. "So explain the working out."

"We're both journalists. We have our separate topics, yes, but we both are obsessed with digging up information that no one else has gotten," Neville observed. "I know all your tactics, is what I'm saying, and I'm not falling for it." Ginny grinned.

"Explain the working out," she tried again, not to be distracted. "Come on. You're probably the most ripped guy in the office—what gives?"

"I was the fat, weird, lame kid," he said simply, "as Parvati would probably gleefully tell you, if she hasn't already."

"Parvati was going to flirt with you," Ginny blurted. "Oh, crap. I shouldn't have told you that. I'm a bad friend."

"Parvati passed notes in classes with the rest of the girls in our year about how weird and fat and stupid I was, so you can imagine I'm really eager to take her up on that," Neville drawled, and there was that weird uncharacteristic bitterness again. Ginny sat a bit lower in her seat, feeling ashamed as though she were the one who had passed those notes. She then felt ashamed on Parvati's behalf as she pictured how it would have gone down tonight, had they both attended the gathering. It was all too easy to picture Parvati drunkenly clawing at Neville, who would undoubtedly politely turn her down in private, sparing her the humiliation of public rejection. Ginny cringed.

"So you went to university, and it was a fresh start, so you got _shredded_ and were determined to show up everyone when you saw them again," she concluded. Neville arched his brows at her.

"No. I was determined to show up myself," he corrected her, and began drawing circles on the table with the condensation from his now-empty pint. "I had to prove to myself that I wasn't just going to be the fat weird kid forever."

"I had a sort of traumatic experience when I was a kid," she blurted out. Neville watched her face turn red, and suddenly she wasn't looking at him. "And I basically spent three years either crying in front of people or, like, hiding in the bathrooms. Everyone thought I was totally mental."

"What changed?"

Neville was looking at her intently. He wanted to know more, and he was not afraid of a topic so personal. It felt weird. No one had ever asked her about it before so directly.

"I had to prove to myself that I wasn't just going to be the mental, crying girl forever," she said wryly, and finally met his eyes. "I know how it feels. I had my own tormentors too and I can't imagine having to work with them."

"Parvati's hardly a tormentor," Neville dismissed. "…I won't press you for more, but…if you do want to talk about it, at all ever, just know…I'm willing to listen. I mean, I want to know, obviously, but I don't want to make it weird, and if you don't want to tell me what happened, that's…I mean, I get it," he stammered, stumbling over his words in his effort to make himself clear.

Their eyes met again and Ginny was smiling at him, and he felt his breath hitch. It was her smile—her brown eyes blazing with intensity against the softness of the curve of her lips—that got him.

She was radiant.

"Did we just become best friends?" she asked in a low, excited voice.

It was like a slap. Neville ignored it. He'd spent too much of his time feeling too sorry for himself to make a move, but beside that, Ginny was not single—and they'd just met.

It was an old habit, he told himself, to feel like he was invisible to pretty girls. He would _not_ feel sorry for himself. He simply would not allow it. He was better than that.

"I can't be best friends with a plant killer," he said, holding his hands up. "I'm sorry, but it's just unethical."

Ginny was laughing again.

"What about if I buy the next round?"

Neville pretended to consider it.

"I guess I can accept it," he said with a sigh.

The next round got her tipsy, and Neville was starting to head towards being solidly drunk. "You wanna see something really cool? I mean, I think it's cool, so it's probably actually _super_ cool," he rambled. Ginny slid off her seat.

"It probably _is_ super cool, best friend," she said with a grin. "Lead the way."

It was misting again, and though Ginny usually hated rain, she welcomed the cool mist now. She tilted her face, which felt too warm, up towards the rain.

"Stop publicly bathing and follow me," Neville ordered, and grabbed her by the hand and began pulling her.

"So what is this super cool thing?" she laughed as she hurried to catch up with him.

"The coolest thing in Hogsmeade, and only _I_ have access to it. And, I mean, some other people do too, but who cares," Neville said offhandedly. They went to the metro and took it two stops north, towards the university.

When they came back above ground, it was quieter here, and more stately. The tree-lined roads were made of cobblestone and wound and twisted round old stone and brick buildings. "I teach a class here on Thursday nights," Neville explained as he led her to a little doorway covered in vines. It led to an alleyway lined with mossy stones. Ginny was surprised to find her spine tingling with a sort of nostalgic sense of magic in the air. She felt like a little kid, for one too-brief flash, and was abruptly taken back to a time when she had still believed that fairies hid in toadstools, and that if she could only find the right door with the right key, she would come upon a secret garden.

"On plants?"

"A botany elective," Neville clarified as they came to another vine-covered door. "And luckily, Hogwarts has got the most amazing greenhouse in the whole of Britain. Like, actually—it's ranked nationally," he said with relish, and fished in his back pocket for another set of keys. The door was a back door into an old building, and when Ginny craned her neck, she could see a magnificent greenhouse on the second floor.

Inside was dark and cold, and smelled of moss and soil. Ginny followed him up winding stone steps that were so steep and narrow that she almost tripped.

And then, quite abruptly, they were standing amid a jungle. It was humid and there was a distant hum from the climate control. The plants had just been watered, and now everything was glittering with mist droplets. It was no run-of-the-mill greenhouse, either—the plants had been arranged so that it felt more like a fantastic indoor garden. The greenhouse's structure was lovely, too: artistic attention had been paid even to how the panes of glass fit together, and they created an elaborate dome overhead.

"Okay, this _is_ super cool," Ginny conceded. She felt like Neville was looking at her, but when she glanced at him, he was actually examining a lush pink plant with flowers the size of dinner plates.

"Overwatering it," he summed up unhappily. He slipped out his mobile with one hand and began searching for something, while his other hand touched the petals, still examining them.

"So could I keep _any_ of these alive?" Ginny asked, feeling an irrational urge to bring his attention back to her. Neville didn't reply immediately, and squinted at the screen.

"Ah—must be too cool for this one. They should move it to the tropics room." He stuffed his mobile back in his pocket. "Sorry, what?"

"Could I keep any alive?" she pressed. "In this greenhouse."

"No. In fact, mind you touch nothing—it might be transmitted via touch," he teased. "Like the hand of Midas, but instead of gold, it's death—Ooh, check this out." He led her around the corner, and Ginny could not help but notice how his walk and tone subtly changed now that they were on his own turf—he stood a little taller; his walk was a little more commanding, somehow.

It was very hard to reconcile this man with the image that Parvati had painted: of the fat, weird kid who always got picked last.

This part of the greenhouse was not lit up with artificial light—rather, the plants themselves twinkled around them. Ginny gasped and knelt in front of one of them.

"The molecular biology department transferred luciferase to these plants, which happen to have enzymes that react with the luciferase to create light," Neville explained as he knelt down next to her. "Luciferase is from fireflies," he added.

Ginny was a little too full of beer to kneel down for so long, and she sat down fully on the slate tiles and marveled at the lit-up plants around them. Neville copied her, and for a long time, they just stared. "Science, dude," He said, his voice filled with irony, shaking his head.

"So if you know what luciferase is, why are you writing in the landscaping column for the _Prophet?_ "

"Believe it or not, it pays way better than any academic position."

"You don't seem like someone who would be that concerned with money," Ginny remarked, looking to him with interest. Neville's gaze was fixed on a plant whose trailing tendrils glimmered softly.

"My parents have both been in hospital for a very long time—as long as I can remember—and even though the government pays for their care, they still rack up significant expenses," he said conversationally. "And my gran went into debt when I was little while trying to get them help and take care of me at the same time, so...yeah."

"I'm sorry," Ginny said quietly.

"Thanks." He looked back at her and shot her a grin. "Tit for tat, Weasley—now you've got to tell me something."

Ginny sighed. She wasn't usually one for anxiety but she felt her stomach tightening with it now.

"The thing that made me weird in school that I mentioned before," she began, and drew in a deep breath. "It's the only personal thing I've really got, so I might as well tell you.

"It was basically the very beginning of online messaging, when I was about ten years old. I have a lot of brothers, so I liked to stay after school at the library and do my homework there, because it was quiet. But it didn't take me very long to do my homework, so a lot of times, I'd browse on the web. Nothing weird, just internet games and stuff like that. And our school had its own internal instant messaging, so that you could message other people who were in the library at the same time."

She closed her eyes. It was still, nearly twenty years later, all too easy to recall the smell of the library, the pasty color of the old computers, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, and then the flash of red and blue on her screen with a new instant message alert. That flash of red and blue had become so powerful to her... "A lot of the older kids did their homework there, mainly because they wanted to hang around this one guy. He was six years ahead of me, and was the best-looking guy in the school. Everyone was obsessed with him. He was the smartest, the handsomest, the coolest…he was destined for success and girls just threw themselves at him."

"Oh, no," Neville said softly, but he didn't stop her.

"I thought I was invisible to him," she continued, eyes still closed. "But then…one day, he messaged me. At first I thought it was just a joke, so I ignored him for a few days. Why would he want _anything_ to do with me? But he started sitting at the terminal across from me and sometimes we'd make eye contact, and then I realized it _wasn't_ a joke." The memory of that beautiful boy with his clever eyes and crisp uniform was still in crystalline detail.

Surely her memory was more highly-colored than reality—or had his smooth ivory skin really held that perfect, faint hint of a blush just along his lovely cheekbones? Even in that ugly lighting? "I was only ten, so I didn't understand that it was really weird and creepy that a sixteen year old boy, particularly such a popular one, was paying attention to me."

"You thought it meant you were special, and you thought a popular older boy wouldn't hurt you," he guessed.

"He was the school's golden boy, and he was Head Boy," she agreed. "And so… we started talking. For months, we'd chat every day after school—just silly stuff. I would complain about my brothers teasing me, and about how I never seemed to fit in with the other girls, and he… would just listen. Sometimes he'd drop some tidbit of personal stuff about himself—like how he was adopted, like how he was trying to find his birthmother."

"Just enough to keep you interested."

"Exactly. I felt like he was opening up to me, and _only_ me. So I stopped trying so hard to make friends, and I became more and more isolated. I stayed later and later at the library. We eventually traded screen names and then I got internet at my home, and started messaging him then, too.

"We never once spoke to each other in person. It was like some sort of rule that we both knew but had never explicitly set. After a while, he started talking about how much he hated school, and how much he hated the people there. He said I was the only person who understood him and who really knew him. He implied his foster family was abusive but he was too scared to report them. He had all these reasons for why he couldn't report them—for why reporting them wouldn't work.

"He never even told me to do what I did—that was the craziest thing about it. I thought I had come up with it on my own, and there was no evidence that he had ever once forced me to do anything. I had figured out who his foster parents were, and I knew where he lived. It was near my home, actually. I could walk to his house.

"I'd got it into my head that I had to be the one to save him. I wasn't sleeping or eating at this point, really. I had no other friends and I'd basically stopped communicating with my family. And I didn't realize it at the time, but he'd been subtly saying things for months that played on my insecurities in ways I couldn't detect. He'd been systematically tearing me down. I was just this…shroud of myself," Ginny stammered, her voice constrained with emotion. "What I'm saying is that I was totally out of my mind. So, I went to his house while everyone was out. All I was going to do was write them a warning to stop hurting him. He'd become so important to me...he was the only person who understood me and I was so sure he was the only person who would ever like me.

"But they had an alarm system, and the police came—and I had a gun in my backpack. I hadn't put it there; I wouldn't even have been able to fit my hands around it."

Ginny didn't speak for a long time. She felt lost in a haze of memories; mostly memories of what had come after that horrible morning. The police had read the chat logs; her teachers had read the chat logs; her _parents_ had read the chat logs. It had been even more humiliating than being caught by the police at his parents' home.

"My fingerprints weren't on the gun and it was just too obvious that I had had no idea it was there," she said finally. "So I got off easy there, but everything else was bad. My entire life was turned into an investigation. Everyone read through the chat logs, so everyone knew all of the stupid things I had said about my family, and about my teachers. They were just stupid impulsive things that any kid would complain about, but now they were immortalized forever, and _everyone_ knew."

"And he'd never expressly told you to do anything, so he wasn't in hot water," Neville concluded. "But how did he explain away the fact that he was a sixteen year old guy devoting hours of talking to a ten year old girl?"

"He said he had been worried about me," Ginny recalled dismally. "He told them he'd seen me looking upset in the library every day and felt like it was his duty, as Head Boy, to look after me. He said he thought if I just had one friend, maybe I'd find the confidence to make more. He even had a draft of a letter he'd been planning to send to the school counselor about me. And it fit so perfectly with the Mr Perfect image he'd created that no one suspected otherwise."

"Fuck him," Neville said. "Whatever happened to him?"

Ginny pasted on a bright smile.

"He's living happily ever after," she said with thick sarcasm. "He makes a shitload of money as a very well-known barrister and quite often we run into each other around Hogsmeade. And he's still stupidly handsome, and he's still stupidly beloved by everyone, but every time I see him, he just gives me this _look_ , like he's reminding me of how stupid and easy I was, and how I'm still that stupid and easy. Like he's still laughing at me, two decades later."

"…Not the barrister Tom Riddle?" Neville said now, incredulously. "He donates a ton of money to the _Prophet_. Pays a lot to take out advert space, too."

"I know," Ginny said tightly, "because he gets invited to every single _Prophet_ event."

"I _knew_ he was a piece of shit," Neville said now, his voice rough. "So did Hermione and Luna. They're the only girls I've ever met who don't lose their heads round him."

"I lost my head round him, and badly at that," Ginny pointed out. Neville scoffed.

"You were _ten_ , and he targeted you. If otherwise intelligent, insightful adults fell for his act, then a lonely ten year old was bound to. Sounds like he had _everyone_ fooled."

For a long time they were silent, staring at the softly glowing plants, with Ginny's story as thick in the air as the humidity. Her hands were still shaking and her heart was fluttering in her throat. "I don't need to tell you that all of that wasn't your fault, right?" he said suddenly. "I just mean—someone already told you that, right?"

Ginny thought back. Her parents had been embarrassed, horrified, and shocked. Her brothers had given her a wide berth for years, treating her like some sort of ticking time bomb. Her teachers had treated her like she was about to bring down a British version of Columbine any day. Her classmates had treated her like a leper. The counselor provided by the school had treated her like an abused animal—something pathetic but also revoltingly stupid.

It had been worse than how Tom Riddle had treated her. She could have recovered so easily from that. The real pain was the years of isolation and loneliness that had followed.

"No," she realized. "No, I don't think anyone ever actually said that."

If she were one for crying she would have burst into tears at this realization.

Instead she began to laugh. She covered her face. "Oh my god. I bet you regret asking to hear something personal now, eh?"

"Actually, it was rather interesting," Neville admitted, and she laughed harder. "Like a really good television programme, except shorter and no commercials; so, better. And a good twist at the end, with him being someone I know."

"Stay tuned for part two— _How Ginny Got her Groove Back_ ," Ginny joked in a television announcer voice.

"Ooh, is there a montage?" Neville asked eagerly.

"Not just one—there are several. And they're all set to girl-power hits from the nineties."

"I expect to see one where you start, like, jogging on a treadmill, and you get your hair cut, and start looking more sassy," Neville said hopefully.

"Why the haircut?"

"Dunno; it just seems like one of those transformation things that happens in montages. I was picturing you with very long, lank hair like the girl from the _Ring_ movie and now it's all swingy and shiny, so a haircut must've happened at some point," he reasoned seriously. Privately Ginny glowed at the implication that he'd noticed and admired her hair. "And also there should be a montage where the blokes at school all start noticing you, but you're too busy bending it like Beckham while being all confident and sassy to care."

"That did happen," Ginny conceded with a laugh. "It could be interwoven with _your_ montage, of you getting all fit and confident."

Neville snorted.

"I said I was too self-conscious to go to the gym, and that I didn't know anything about working out, so I couldn't go. …So naturally, Hermione read literally every book on exercise that exists and acted as my trainer, and Luna wore her weirdest outfits and accompanied us to the gym to draw attention away from me."

"See? Excellent montage material," Ginny insisted. "You would need energetic pop-punk to accompany it, though, to show you breaking out of your shell."

"Lots of scroll-by outtake-style shots of Luna's various costumes and Hermione looking bemused by them and me being really sweaty and failing to do even one bench press," Neville added. "Oh, and my gran used to buy all my clothes, so in the beginning I wore these really awful matching tracksuits that no one under seventy would ever normally touch."

"Oh, perfect—with really lame old-guy white trainers?" Ginny asked hopefully.

"Yes, _and_ white tube socks, into which I tucked the ends of my sweatpants."

"Naturally. That's what white tube socks are for," she reasoned.

Quiet fell upon them again. Ginny heard a mobile buzzing, but it was Neville's. He checked it and let out a whoop.

"Listen to this! From Luna: Malfoy joined our gathering and apparently somehow insulted Hermione, so Harry Potter the crime section columnist punched him. Now it appears Hermione is locked in the bathroom with Harry Potter and there's lots of banging noises and swearing," he read off with relish. "Sorry, Weasley—looks like you missed out on your chance to shag Harry in the loo of a bar."

"I'm devastated," Ginny deadpanned. "Holy crap—I had no idea they were a thing."

"They weren't," Neville said with delight. "They actually argue all the time because Harry's always running late with his articles and then wants Hermione's help. And Harry fancies you, and Hermione fancies her books. Excellent. I love being surprised," he said, reading over the text again irresistibly. "Oh, and apparently Parvati asked Luna several times where I was. Luna says she changed the subject and asked Parvati how her 'womanly parts' are, and if she wants any herbal remedy recipes."

Ginny snorted so hard she felt like she'd got punched in the nose.

"Oh god, Luna is amazing." She paused. "Okay, hear me out on this one—do you think Luna would be cute with my brother?"

Neville seriously considered the question, stroking his stubble thoughtfully. Ginny noted that it was flecked with grey in a way that did not remotely age him—rather it only added to the distinct Clive Owen vibe she was getting from him. Her face flushed. _And now I'm latching onto the first guy who treats me better than Dean. Classy, Ginny,_ she scolded herself. _Neville deserves better treatment than that._

"It would, at the very least, be extremely entertaining," he said slowly, thinking it through. "Ron would be dumb enough to be easily set up—sorry," he said hastily, and Ginny gave a wave of her hand. "—And Luna…well, she would know what was going on but would go for it, I think."

"We need a name for this operation," Ginny said, rubbing her hands together.

"Operation Snorkack," Neville said immediately. "Luna is always saying Ron reminds her of one." He glanced at Ginny. "And don't ask me what a Snorkack is, because literally no one but Luna knows."

"Operation Snorkack," she repeated thoughtfully. "I like the sound of it. It starts Monday."

The implication that this lark of friendship and communication would continue made Neville's face grow warm. He had assumed this was a one-off— _a friendship one-night-stand,_ he'd thought wryly earlier when he'd grabbed her hand to drag her to the metro—but maybe it _was_ real friendship. He was unabashedly happy at the thought of it.

Ginny Weasley was extremely fun.

Neville opened his mouth to suggest their first move, but was cut off by the sound of voices approaching.

"Crap—security guard," he mouthed. "Stay low—follow me."

Ginny had to clap a hand over her mouth to stop from audibly giggling, and she and Neville slunk through the plants toward the other exit of the greenhouse.

They exploded out of the greenhouse and burst out laughing. When they looked back up at it, their shoes sinking into the damp lawn, they could see the swing of flashlights illuminating the windows as the security guards hunted for them.

"Sayonara, suckers!" Ginny sang, sending off a rude, well-known hand gesture in their general direction. Neville snorted.

"That would be a lot more compelling if you weren't pygmy-sized and dressed like a ginger Barbie doll," he remarked as they began walking back towards the metro station.

"I prefer to say I'm dressed like a Bond girl," she said haughtily. "Look, these stilettos are practically weapons."

"Yeah, no idea how you walk in those things," he marveled, shaking his head. "I would die."

The metro ride was quiet. It was well past one in the morning, now. Neville offered to see Ginny back to her flat, and Ginny agreed, mainly because she was enjoying his company and it was an excuse to put off the inevitable—of looking at her mobile and seeing that Dean had or had not tried to get in touch with her. She couldn't decide which would be worse.

"Nice neighborhood," Neville remarked as they turned down her street. She lived in a rather hip area, and it was still alive with people and noise and lights. She liked the noise and chaos of it.

"My rent is a small fortune," she confided, swinging her purse. "But I wouldn't live anywhere else."

"I live in a rowhome in a more suburban neighborhood," Neville said. "I like the peace and quiet. But sometimes I feel like I should have at least had a few years in a spot like this."

"You still could. You're acting like you're ninety."

They came to her building.

Dean was standing out front.

He got to his feet when he saw them approaching.

"Longbottom," he greeted with surprise evident in his voice. "Thanks for walking Gin home. Were you two at the office late?"

Neville said nothing—Ginny felt him glance at her. He was going to let her play this however she wanted, she realized, and part of her rose to the occasion with fury. She wouldn't force Neville to get involved in her business, but she wasn't going to pretend she hadn't just had the most fun evening she'd had in years for Dean's benefit. She smiled at Dean, preparing to strike.

"Actually, he was playing air hockey and drinking with me," she said archly. Both men were looking at her in surprise. Ginny matched the intensity of Dean's gaze. "And now I'm really tired, so I think you should go home, Dean."

Dean was flabbergasted. A small part of her felt sorry for him—he wasn't a bad guy and he had never intentionally hurt her. Perhaps this treatment was a bit harsh.

On the other hand…when she had told him about what happened with Tom Riddle, he had uncomfortably hugged her and then changed the subject.

She deserved better. Neville had reminded her of her own worth, and she was ashamed that she'd needed reminding of it. She wasn't ten and awkward and lonely anymore.

"Gin—" Dean began. Neville interrupted.

"Have a good night, Weasley, and Thomas," he said with an ironic salute. "See you Monday."

"See you Monday," Ginny said clearly, pretending Dean wasn't staring at them. "Don't forget Operation Snorkack."

Neville grinned at her, waved, and disappeared round the corner.

Now it was just she and Dean standing on the street. "Good night, Dean," she said again, a little louder.

"Why did you skip the office gathering?" Dean asked, stepping closer.

"Because I didn't want to go," she said simply. " _Good night._ "

"Don't you want to—"

"No."

She pushed past him and fished for her keys. Dean was overall a good guy, so he did not push the matter further.

"Good night, Ginny," he said with a sigh, and he walked away.

* * *

Neville was still uncertain of whether Ginny really intended for them to be actual friends when he got to work on Monday morning. He went to unlock his office but the door was already unlocked and ajar.

Inside, a small potted plant—it was a succulent, known as _Jovibarba globifera_ —was sitting innocently on his desk. A piece of paper, cut to look like a speech bubble, was taped to the front of the pot.

 _Help me!_ it read.

For some reason, he felt like running a marathon, or letting out a whoop of joy, or dancing, or _something_. He settled for calmly sitting down at his computer and printing out simplified care instructions for the _Jovibarba globifera_ —more commonly known as hen and chicks, though he found that name pedestrian.

He folded the instructions in the shape of an origami flower at first, then deemed it 'overkill' and folded them plainly, and walked the plant and instructions through the common area to Ginny's office.

On his way, he spotted Harry making coffee. A brilliantly purple black eye was visible—he supposed Malfoy most likely looked worse, knowing Harry, and knowing Hermione, as he did. If Malfoy really had insulted her, well, he almost felt sorry for the bloke. He was probably in hospital.

"Have a good weekend, Harry?" Neville asked pleasantly. Harry looked up.

"Oh, yeah. You?"

Trust Harry to not be a gossip at all. Neville grinned. His Friday had been excellent, thanks to Ginny, but then, his Saturday had been pretty great as well…

"Yeah, it was great. What happened to your eye?"

"Pick-up game of rugby," Harry muttered.

Neville chuckled, leaving a paranoid-looking Harry behind. Ginny's door was ajar and he pushed it open. Her office smelled like her perfume and he was annoyed with himself for reflexively inhaling the light, flowery scent. She brightened when she saw him, and pulled out her earbuds.

"You saved it!" she rejoiced as he set the plant on her windowsill.

"Indirect natural light, and it's best left ignored—water it no more than every few weeks," he warned. "Here are instructions." He slapped them down on her desk. Ginny beamed at him.

"Operation Snorkack?" she prompted, clapping her hands together.

"This mission will take cunning and stealth, Agent Pygmy," he said in a low voice. Ginny wrinkled her nose.

"Pygmy? Seriously?"

"Agent Stiletto, then," he said dismissively.

"Why not something cool, like Agent Red, or something? Stiletto is even worse than Pygmy."

"Too obvious. I'll be Agent Peapod," he said, and Ginny sniggered. "Our first objective is to lure the targets into a common space."

"The lunch area is too open—too many chances for interruptions," Ginny said seriously. "We'll need a more refined approach—"

She abruptly cut off as Dean appeared in the doorway.

"Oh," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "Um, looks like you're busy. I'll come back later." Before either could say anything, Dean fled the scene.

"It is sort of gratifying to see the 'Cool Guy' looking all awkward," Neville remarked thoughtfully, after he was out of earshot. "Aren't you going to take him back?" His tone was extremely casual. He hoped it was the right balance.

"It's over," Ginny said firmly. "I'm done being the desperate drunk ex-girlfriend. I'm better than that."

"…This is disconcerting," Neville reflected. "You're like Hermione and Luna—there's no endless whining about their relationships either. I was all set to play the firm friend who repeatedly reminds you that you deserve better. Now what do I do?"

"You know, you deserve better, too," Ginny said now. She looked directly at Neville and he hoped his face wouldn't turn pink. "I mean I'm sure the 'firm friend' role is comfortable, but you're really more leading man material, in my opinion." She grinned slyly. "Lavender rated you and Dean as the two hottest blokes in the office, just so you know."

"Not Ron?" he asked in surprise. Ginny sniggered.

"Even Lavender can't pretend he's objectively good-looking. My brother rates on personality—if you can believe it," she said doubtfully. "But back to business—how are we going to lure them into the same space?"

* * *

After Neville finally tore himself away from Ginny's office, he headed towards Hermione's office and passed by Parvati and Lavender on his way. For the first time, he realized their staring was markedly different in tone from how they had once stared at him in school. They were giggling and whispering like they had before, he realized, but it wasn't _at_ him. He'd spent so many years assuming they were still giggling at his awkwardness, at his body, at his voice, at _everything_ about him.

It had never occurred to him that over the years, the context had changed.

 _You're really more leading man material, in my opinion._

He couldn't help it—he stood a little taller as he walked, and glanced at them.

"Hi ladies," he greeted casually as he breezed past. As he walked away, he heard them burst into a fresh wave of giggles, and felt partially victorious, but partially bemused. Was it really a victory to attract people who were so shallow? But he'd reached Hermione's office, so he set the thought aside for now.

Like always, he didn't bother knocking. "Hey, Hermione, heard you had a rough ni-" He halted mid-word. Hermione was pinning Harry down on her desk, her pencil skirt bunched around her hips, though Harry had her wrists firmly in his grip. They looked up in horror at Neville. "Oh god, sorry!" He attempted to back out, and knocked over a plant stand he had himself put in Hermione's office. Ignoring the urge to stand it upright—that Jade plant had been doing _so well_ , too; it was a shame—he stumbled back and slammed the door behind him.

 _WELL. That was weird._

He began to walk away, but the door opened, revealing Hermione, with her skirt wrinkled and her bushy hair even more wild than usual.

" _Neville_ ," she hissed, and dragged him into an empty conference room and slammed the door. "You cannot tell _anyone_ ," she said darkly now, digging her index finger into his chest. Neville held up his hands.

"I think everyone already knows," he said. Hermione let out a howl not unlike an outraged cat and turned on her heel away from him, pulling at her hair.

"We were _friends,_ " she despaired. "Actually, friends is probably pushing it—we were colleagues," she amended, "who, most of the time, respected each other! I always liked his strong sense of morals, yes, but on balance, always disliked how deadlines seem so irrelevant to him! I thought he was attractive, yes, but was never personally attracted to him!" She turned back to Neville and pointed a desperate, shaking finger in the direction of her office. "And now _this!_ One word from Malfoy—it was actually pretty lame, for Malfoy; usually his insults are at least _somewhat_ clever—and he defended my honor like some sort of knight! You know I hate being defended!"

"And the logical next move was to shag him in a broom cupboard."

"It was a bathroom. A broom cupboard would've been more refined," Hermione corrected him bitterly. Neville arched his brows at her but did not dare question her judgment. "And _you!_ " she suddenly exploded, turning on him, " _where were you?!"_

"Playing air hockey with Ginny Weasley," he said innocently. Hermione narrowed her eyes shrewdly.

"Is this some new euphemism that I've not heard yet?" she asked suspiciously. Neville sniggered.

"Nope. Just air hockey—literally. We played air hockey, I lost badly, and I walked her back home."

He was leaving out a few key details, but those weren't important right this moment.

"If you had been there I wouldn't have shagged him," she mourned. "We haven't even got chemistry! For god's sake, I've more chemistry with Ron Weasley than him!"

"But you respect him," Neville prompted. Hermione groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

" _Of course_ I respect him," she said shrilly. "He's got the strongest moral character of anyone I've ever met. He should be a bloody politician, except he's too _good._ "

"And you find him attractive."

" _I'm_ not attracted to him; I can see why other people would be, because he's got quite a good body, and his eyes are striking," she said analytically. "But he's not _my_ type."

"You enjoy working with him."

"Well, yes, but I enjoy working with most people!"

Neville snorted.

"Do _not_."

"Do too!" She halted. "No. I will not be reduced to this," she said firmly. "Fine. There are plenty of reasons for why I would be willing to shag him in a broom cupboard—I mean bathroom—but that still doesn't change the fact that it was an _awful_ decision."

"Which is why you were shagging him on your desk just now—"

"We weren't _shagging!"_ she said indignantly, stomping her sensible heel-shod foot. "We were just…well…he came in to tell me his article was going to be a bit late _again,_ and I saw that bloody black eye, and I just…gah!" She was tugging at her hair again. "I don't even like men who resort to physical violence, but something about it was just so…ugh!"

"There there," Neville said, patting her shoulder. "I think the only solution is to go back in there and tell him all of this…with no clothes on…with your tongue."

Hermione scowled at him.

"You have not fooled me, Neville Longbottom," she said sharply as they emerged from the conference room. "It was _not_ just air hockey, and I'll find out the truth sooner or later."

Hermione disappeared back into her office and he heard the lock click. Chuckling to himself, he returned to his own office, looking at his watch. It was nearly ten-thirty—he probably ought to actually get some work done.

* * *

"Mr Riddle is a great benefactor of the _Daily Prophet_." Dumbledore's voice was unusually grave. Neville had never been very good with disappointing authority figures; he had to fidget with his tie to cope with the shame he felt, which conflicted with the absolute lack of shame for what he'd actually done.

Saturday night had been fantastic, and there was nothing anyone could do to make him regret it even one bit.

The conference room was packed; Ginny felt she couldn't breathe. Tom Riddle, in all of his Tom Ford-besuited glory, was standing less than three meters from her next to Dumbledore, editor-in-chief, who was surveying them gravely. "Mr Riddle wishes that this matter not be reported on, as it is unclear how it will affect him in the upcoming elections."

Her heart throbbed as heat rushed to her face; she couldn't remember ever being this angry.

 _He's running for office—what office?_

"Sorry, but what matter, Mr Dumbledore?" Lavender asked. Dumbledore looked for a moment like he was regretting inviting the most effective gossip columnist that the _Prophet_ had ever had to this particular meeting.

"It appears that Mr Riddle's automobile was grievously defaced. As the automobile in question is a Firebolt, the damages for such an act would be considerable." Around her she heard people gasping. Only a few Firebolts were made each year, always custom, and had to be picked up at the factory in Italy. Ginny knew a fair bit about cars so she knew this was serious.

She began to hear a ringing in her ears.

"What happened to the car?" Lavender pressed.

And then Tom Riddle spoke.

"Slashed tires, smashed windows, torn seats, and a ruined engine," he said, in that cool baritone voice that never failed to make women swoon. "Really, the damage was almost as extensively designed as the car itself," he mused. Others chuckled.

Ginny risked a glance at Hermione and Luna, recalling what Neville had mentioned about what they thought of Riddle. Hermione had her arms crossed over her chest and her brows arched so high they were nearly at her hairline. She was looking at Riddle like he was something highly embarrassing and foolish. Luna was regarding him thoughtfully, head tilted to the side, clearly deep in thought.

And then she looked at Neville.

He wasn't looking at Riddle. He wasn't looking at her, either. He was looking at the carpet whilst wringing his tie.

 _For fuck's sake, you might as well be wearing a sign saying you did it,_ she thought furiously.

And then she felt that icy gaze settle on her like a sixth sense. Ginny's skin prickled, and she lifted her chin and turned to meet _his_ gaze.

 _I'm not ten anymore,_ she reminded herself fiercely.

He was as lovely and cruel-looking as those especially rare and exotic orchids that looked like they had been designed to reside in some outer space villain's garden. Beauty like that could only ever be sinister. It was too perfect and too strange. Her stomach turned.

His brow arched just the slightest as their eyes met.

Like always when she was forced to meet his gaze, there was that one instant where she was thrown back twenty years, to sitting across from him in the library, their glances as clandestine as their conversations.

 _Why did you do it?_ She wanted to scream. _What the fuck did you even get out of it?_

His smooth lips twitched, and he turned his gaze away from her.

"Whoever did it clearly has little consideration for the handiwork of hard-working Italians," Riddle continued, again drawing a laugh from the room. "Understandably, I'd like it kept quiet until further developments in the investigation. The _Prophet_ is the most respected news outlet in Hogsmeade, which is why it is most important that the _Prophet_ make no comment just yet."

The meeting ended and employees filed out of the conference room. Ginny walked out numbly.

"He must think someone in the room did it," she heard Hermione hissing to Luna behind her.

"He's right," Luna said mildly.

Neville watched Ginny walk directly back to her office without looking back once. For the first time he felt a twinge of remorse, and then, abruptly, felt Hermione's shrewd gaze on him.

"Usually you pay a little more attention during meetings," she remarked under her breath as she followed him back to his own office, hissing like an angry goose after him. "I never knew you to be so absorbed in the material of one of your own ties when someone else was speaking."

"I've decided, after much deliberation, that gold just isn't my color," he said conversationally, pointing to the gold silk of his tie, which was patterned with tiny cream and black dots. "But what do you think?"

"Ask Parvati," Hermione dismissed impatiently as they paused in the doorway to his office. She stared up at Neville, her gaze flinty. "You don't usually hide things from me."

Neville sighed. Hermione was right—he didn't usually hide things from her, mostly because he was generally really bad at it. Case in point—there was literally no reason for her to suspect him of anything yet somehow she obviously already knew he had been the one to vandalize Riddle's car.

"I hate Italian cars," he remarked. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Look, Riddle deserved it— _believe_ me—and I'd happily do it again. If it weren't so likely that he'd benefit from me doing it in front of him, I'd do it that way," he said under his breath.

Hermione's glower deepened.

"Next time, bring me," she said imperiously.

"You hate breaking rules," Neville parried.

"If _you_ say Riddle deserved it, then he must," she said shortly. "And you know I'm the one who's best at planning. I'm also far more creative and cunning with my revenge. We'll talk later."

"Harry's got an article due?" Neville guessed slyly, and Hermione winked at him before returning to her office in rather a hurry.

* * *

If Dumbledore hadn't made the announcement, Ginny kept thinking, she would never know. But now she did know, and it was not because Neville had told her. It was obvious—painfully so—that he'd defaced Riddle's car.

She'd not gotten one minute of work done the whole day. She kept finding herself staring stupidly into space, her mind frenetically switching between the image of Riddle's cruel, clever gaze, and the image of Neville studiously not paying attention to Dumbledore's announcement.

Now it was late; she knew most people had left for the day.

 _I have to work,_ she told herself, but she made no moves to actually do anything other than continue to stare into space like some sort of zombie.

And out of nowhere, anger surged through her. How dare Neville take her personal life into his hands like that? She had confided in him, and what had he done? He'd bloody gone and destroyed a _Firebolt._ That car was worth more than most houses, even fancy ones in central London. It was literally worth a fortune, and he had destroyed it, supposedly in her honor.

Fuming for reasons she couldn't even explain, she rose from her desk and stalked through the common area towards his office. She didn't expect to find him there and she didn't even know what she was planning on doing, but she was out of control.

The door was ajar and the light was on. She pushed the door open and it banged against the wall, jolting Neville. He had removed his tie and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt, and blinked at her in confusion as though she'd woken him up.

"Ah, Weasley—sorry, I was just reading this submission about landscaping rooftop gardens, and—"

"How _dare_ you," she seethed. She slammed the door shut behind her. "How dare you do that to his car." She expected Neville to stop or cower or something, but he rose to his feet, looking strangely resigned.

"I don't regret it," he said evenly.

"I don't need anyone taking my personal matters into their hands. I have worked _very_ hard to put the past behind me, and—"

"—it wasn't for you." Neville's voice was calm. He stepped around his desk. "It was for me."

"You have no right to make my trauma the subject of your weekend excursions."

"Riddle has never paid for his crimes, and I cannot _bear_ it," he shot back, his voice shaking slightly. "I cannot stand by idly while someone does that kind of thing to another person and pays no consequences. You could have ended up in a detention center—anything could have happened." His eyes were growing wet.

"But it _didn't,_ and all I want to do is pretend it never happened!"

"But it _did_ happen, Ginny!" He raised his voice. "He deserves retribution."

"Life doesn't work like that. Sometimes things happen, and it's not fair."

"Yeah, _sometimes_ —sometimes it's true that you can't make someone pay for their crimes. But _this_ time, you can."

Neville's eyes were almost unbearably blue. She found it hard to look at him.

"So you decided to make Riddle indirectly pay for whatever happened to your parents," she concluded.

"Yes," Neville said flatly. "I did. And it felt great. I'm a fucking landscape columnist with very little cash—there is no way I can go after the people who hurt my parents. But this, I could do." He lifted his chin as he drew in a deep breath and stared at her. "I'm not sorry. He did a terrible thing that could have had endless, spiraling consequences for your life. It's a matter of luck and your own resilience that nothing worse happened. But he could have ruined your life."

"If you get caught, this will ruin _your_ life."

"I won't get caught. I wish somehow I could let him know I did it, without it backfiring, and mostly I wish I could let him know _why._ But I thought it through and there's no way I could do that without implicating you. So he'll just have to wonder."

"You barely know me."

"Doesn't matter. It wasn't for you," he reiterated simply.

She wordlessly turned and left his office.

She wasn't one for crying, but this time she burst into tears. She blindly grabbed her things from her own office and fled the building, her eyes still streaming as she gasped erratically for breath that could not satisfy her lungs. _It wasn't for you._

"Ginny."

She froze. How many times had she heard that voice in her dreams?

Tom Riddle was waiting by the curb, in the midst of hailing a cab. Her brown eyes met his shadow-colored eyes. He dropped his arm. "It's been a while."

She stepped back.

"Please do not come any closer," she said firmly, though her voice wobbled.

 _He could have ruined your life._

"Have it your way," he said lightly, and turned back to face the wet street. For one burning moment, as she stared hard at his beautiful profile, she realized it would be so easy to push him into the path of an oncoming car or bus.

Was this really it? Was she simply going to walk away from this man who had tormented her? Was he simply going to allow it?

She could not bear to let him have the last word.

"Why did you do it," she called, raising her voice above the sound of the tires on the wet road. Riddle glanced back at her, looking bored. "Why did you do that to me," she clarified. "I've always wanted to know."

His eyes were so blank. He leisurely turned to face her once more, and approached her. A cab had screeched to a stop at the curb but he waved it away and it pulled away abruptly. For the moment, suddenly the street was empty of cars. "Why did you set me up like that? Why did you make me think we were friends? Why did you make me fall in love with you? I could have killed your foster parents—you didn't know for certain that I wouldn't do it…So why did you?"

"Because I could," he said simply. "Because you let me."

It was stupid and impulsive, but she swung her purse—holding her laptop, a change of shoes, and half the makeup that she owned—as hard as she could at that stupid perfect face. There was a loud crack of bone and cartilage being crushed by at least fifteen pounds of metal, plastic, and leather.

"Stay away from her!" bellowed a voice from nowhere. Riddle stumbled back in surprise, clutching his face as Ginny numbly realized a spray of dark red now painted the sidewalk, and his hand and face were glistening with red so dark it was almost black.

Hermione, Harry, and Neville were approaching them thunderously. "I saw everything that happened, and the police are on their way," Hermione said, holding up her mobile. Riddle looked at her in disbelief just as blue and red began to flash— _blue and red flashing on her screen, pallid yellow light, the buzzing of fluroscent lights—_ and sirens were blaring as a police car screeched to a stop behind them.

And then Harry and Neville ducked over to Riddle and were restraining him as the officer got out of his car.

"Yes, we saw the whole thing from the window," Hermione was saying matter-of-factly to the assisting officer who was taking notes as Harry, Neville, and the other officer deposited Riddle in the car, with much struggle. "She clearly asked him to step away from her; he waved away a cab and made a grab for her and grabbed her hair. She had to hit him out of self-defense."

It was a lie. She had assaulted Riddle out of nowhere. He had not even touched her, or attempted to do so.

She couldn't breathe. She dropped her purse, unable to even worry about the laptop inside it, and suddenly felt a strong arm around her, supporting her.

"She's all right, just shock I think," she heard Neville telling the officer. "We know him well so it's a bit of a surprise that he would do something like this…"

* * *

"Well, I've got material for the next twelve months," Lavender said gleefully, holding up her latest column. "Apparently Riddle's paid off _dozens_ of people for varying forms of assault! Plus all kinds of other things that I haven't even managed to sift through yet. ...You wouldn't think a man who looks like _that_ would have to force himself on anyone, but there it is…"

"No running for office now," said Hermione smugly as she stirred her tea. "As it turns out, having a criminal assault record puts voters off."

Ginny regretted coming to the common area, and immediately retreated back to her own office. It was a week later and, at last, the fuss was beginning to die down.

She'd not spoken to Neville once.

Luna, however, out of the blue had approached her days ago, explaining that Harry and Hermione had been plotting an expose on Tom Riddle for _years_. They'd been carefully collecting as much incriminating evidence as they could; they'd had all the material and were merely waiting for the right moment to strike, apparently.

It was pure luck that Hermione and Harry had happened to still be in the office, and had happened to go into Neville's office at the perfect moment—the office which happened to have a flawless view of the street.

Hermione had seen the opportunity and had decided the moment was right to strike.

Now Ginny was still in shock. She'd always been resilient, but this was something different. She didn't know how to feel, and usually she did better with something to rebel against—this time, there was nothing. Everyone was sympathizing with her, and it seemed that an hour could not go by without her hearing in some form or another of how 'badass' she was for fighting off Riddle the way she had.

She'd broken his nose, knocked out his front tooth, and split his upper lip.

He'd need plastic surgery.

The irony would have been great if she weren't so horrified.

But even though she and Neville had not spoken, she was overwhelmed by her need to talk to him. He'd skipped work today, and the rumor was that he had taken a vacation day. Dean had been texting her constantly, asking her to talk to him about what happened, but she had zero desire to see Dean.

She knew what she had to do—there was no other option, because it was obvious that Neville was being considerate and understanding and giving her _space,_ so he'd never be the one to break their tacit silence—but that didn't make it any easier.

She asked Luna for Neville's address—Luna could be relief on to be discrete, luckily, and she sensed that asking Hermione for the address would simply result in a confrontation of some sort—and informed everyone that she was taking the afternoon off for 'personal time.'

It was a short walk to the metro and then three stops west to Neville's neighborhood in a more suburban part of Hogsmeade. When she ascended the metro steps, she was greeted by the sight of winding, twisting streets of old-fashioned rowhomes, tidy and neat and romanticized by the glow of the setting sun. The streets were wet and the air was damp but the clouds had parted just in time for the sun to set and infuse the late Friday afternoon with that buzz of life that every late spring Friday so deserved.

She counted off the houses, her stilettos clicking on the wet sidewalk, until she came to the home at the end of the road.

Neville was out front, gardening. He didn't hear her, apparently; he was entirely absorbed in planting something at the corner of his lot that had little pink heart-shaped blooms trailing about it. _A bleeding heart plant,_ she recognized wryly. Her mum had one at home. _How appropriate for him._

She came to a stop next to him and Neville jolted, only just detecting her presence. He was wearing an old white tee-shirt and jeans and gardening gloves, and his forehead was smudged with dirt. His shirt was damp and clinging to him in ways that seemed almost pornographic.

Maybe if things had not been quite so intense she could have made a joke about Operation Snorkack being delayed, or something, but her mouth couldn't form the words.

And for the second time, she burst into tears. Neville shot to his feet.

"I—oh, crap, my hands are filthy—let me get you a—" he began to turn back to go inside, presumably for tissues, but she reached out and grabbed his upper arm. His skin was slick with rain and sweat and it felt like she'd been shocked when she touched him, but it was in the best way possible, so she didn't let go.

"I know it wasn't for me," she said, her chest heaving, "but thank you, anyway."

She wiped at her eyes with the back of her free hand. Her makeup was probably insane thanks to her crying but she didn't care too much at the moment.

"Of _course_ it was for you, Ginny," he said, shaking his head.

She would have guessed that he might pull away and insist on getting her a tissue, or else that he might say something gentle and understanding.

She would never have guessed that he would do what he did now: he chucked off his gloves and tossed them away and turned to face her.

And in one fluid movement his arms had encircled her, then his hands were on her back, and then he was kissing her irresistibly, slowly, as though he had to relish every point of contact between them.

At last he pulled back slightly, still holding her against him. "But don't get too close—that shrub is new and there's no telling just how far your deadly powers extend."

 _End_


End file.
